Letting insults fly our way too. Without reacting. I don't pretend to be good at it. But I think I need to at least think how important this is. Can we encourage each other on here? To have the decency, the courage to turn the other cheek when necessary?
Realities of life have a way of burning us out. Encounters require us to be on the ball, and not lose our cool. How awesome if this forum was some kind of oasis from the problems of life. where we can recharge and regain our strength. With Jesus Christ anything is possible.
I DO wish that the decency and respect you encourage would take place on this site. And I readily admit that I will take disrespect and insult for a little while, but a very little while. When I finally point out that I feel insulted and dismissed, every single time I get back, "I didn't insult you." As if saying so makes it so. When I point out the insult, the person vanishes. Never an apology or an admission that, yeah maybe they should take a different tone, or a sorry, it was not my intention.
I have found that no one communicates with me AT ALL unless they see a way to provoke a fight. I realize that my theology as Reformed is different from the majority, and I don't dismiss what they believe, nor do I ever attempt to persuade them away from their beliefs. Frequently people make incorrect statements of what Reformed teaches and I try to clarify.
It is the listening, or rather NOT listening, as you say that turns all these exchanges into battles. I have yet to find a single person who understands what I am saying. Instead they TELL me what I am saying and will not budge from their position. They will not budge one iota from their preconceived ideas of what they THINK (it is obvious they do not KNOW) Reformed Theology teaches lest they have to acknowledge that, oh, they don't have to HATE it even if they do disagree. They have a blind spot in their vision is what it is like. They insist to sticking to the position that they know better than I do what I believe.
Meanwhile Reformed Theology is slandered with false statements all over this site, and people believe what they hear, and the herd of haters multiplies.
Do they know, but live in a way opposed to what they know, that people who believe the ACTUAL teachings of this theology, are their brothers and sisters in Christ? And do they forget how Jesus teaches us to treat one another? Do they forget we are one body, the body of Christ? Do they abandon the knowledge that we all have been given the same Holy Spirit, Who is our teacher?
Just once I would like someone who dislikes or thinks they know the teachings of this theology to actually HEAR and understand what I say when I correct their misunderstandings! Just once I would like to hear someone acknowledge that yes, I probably know more about what Reformed teaches and understand what I say and ACCEPT it, not agree with the theology, but ACCEPT that what I say is true ABOUT reformed. Instead they read what I say looking for some way to refute the theology, still in their interpretation, the one they had before I explained their misunderstanding.
There. I have vented. And I have little hope that anything will change.